


Reflective Soulmate

by brothersinsync (ceoriginal)



Series: Sync's Fill-in Fic [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Body Swap, Gen, sam and dean body swap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-20
Updated: 2016-06-20
Packaged: 2018-07-16 03:08:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7249633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceoriginal/pseuds/brothersinsync
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was supposed to be a simple hunt. So how did Dean end up swapping bodies with his brother? And how do they fix this?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reflective Soulmate

**Author's Note:**

> Set between _Jus in Bello_ and _Ghostfacers._

Dean brushed his hand back and forth in front of him as he walked to avoid a mouthful of cobwebs. The flashlight in his other hand also made sweeps illuminating the narrow passageway. Held between his ear and his shoulder, his cell phone connected him, loosely, to his brother.

“This thing had better be around the next corner or I’m giving up for the night,” Dean said.

“There’s a big cavern coming up on the map.” Sam’s voice came back to him garbled, but Dean could translate “robot-Sam”.

“Yeah well, it’s dirty as fuck down here,” Dean said, wiping the cobwebs off his hand and onto the leg of his jeans.

“Just keep moving,” said robot-Sam.

“I’m at the next junction. Left or right?”

Sam barked out a one syllable answer, but Dean missed it.

“What?” Dean asked.

“I said, right,” Sam repeated. “There should be a big room.”

“Ok.” Dean turned right and walked a few hundred feet before the tunnel did open up into a huge underground cavern. He moved the light around trying to cut through the dark.

“You sure, Sammy?” Dean asked. “It looks pretty empty.”

“All the lore says it likes big, dark places and that it likes to hoard things,” Sam said. “Just go look. If it’s not there we can try again tomorrow.”

Dean moved deeper into the room hugging the far right wall.

“I see something,” Dean whispered. “Stand by.”

He put the phone on speaker and flipped it closed, slipping it into his front pocket. Raising his gun now, he crept towards a pile of something in the corner. There was a small movement illuminated by his flashlight beam and he froze. He squinted into the darkness and then opened his eyes wide trying to see more in the dim light.

He relaxed.

“Come on, Dean,” he said to himself. “Just a mirror.” The light had reflected back to him off a mirror in the pile of junk.

He suddenly found himself being forced to the ground, a row of sharp teeth snapping at his face. The pistol flew from his hands and he was left to bash the creature, a large wolf-like animal with a pronounced nose and large, gaping mouth, with his flashlight. He reached for the knife in his boot, but had to keep bringing his hand back up to block the thing as it tried to bite his head off. From his pocket, he could hear his brother yelling to him.

Finally he found enough time to grab the knife and stab it into the rib cage of the monster on top of him. It made an ear-piercing screech and slumped on top of Dean. Rolling the creature off of himself, Dean got to his feet.

“Gross.” He wiped his hand on his shirt but found it covered in blood.

“Dean,” Sam called. “Are you ok?”

“Yeah.” Dean pulled out the phone, turning it off speaker and placing it to his ear. “I found the damn thing.”

“Don’t forget the tooth Bobby wanted.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Dean moved over to the monster, and pulled out a pair of pliers. Steadying the head, he ripped a tooth out and shoved it into his pocket before, once again, unsuccessfully wiping his hands on his shirt.

Using his beat-up, bloodied flashlight he searched for his gun.

“Ah, crap,” Dean said.

“What?”

“It’s got babies.”

A smaller version of the creature he had just killed launched itself at Dean. Dancing away from it, he threw himself into the mirror leaning against the wall. He went to swat at the baby and found himself merely swatting at Sam’s laptop screen.

He looked around surprised to be in the hotel they were staying in. Sitting at a small round table, the laptop in front of him was showing the map of the sewers winding below the city. The cell phone on the table showed it was still connected to a call with himself. As he watched, the counting numbers on the phone display switched to the words “Call lost”.

**\--0--**

The sudden darkness startled Sam. And the fact that something was trying to eat his face. Instinct took over and he found a shard of glass on the ground, quickly killing the baby version of the creature he had been hunting all week.

Standing still, he listened for several minutes for any other sign of life trying to kill him. Silence.

_ Ok, what just happened? _ he thought, letting his eyes adjust to the dark.

A few spots of faint light glowed on the ground and he moved towards one of them, finding Dean’s cell phone. No signal.

Sam pocketed the phone and walked to the other light. It was the flashlight, mostly covered in blood blocking the beam. He tried to clean the glass on his shirt to get more light, and found that he, too, was covered in blood. He managed to clean it well enough using the bottom of his pant leg and started walking out of the sewer system tunnels, the map fresh in his head.

Now that he had calmed down and was focusing on the task of walking, he found it was almost awkward to do so. Like his stride was too short. He kept walking. Finally he came to the ladder that would lead him to the street a few blocks from the hotel they were staying at. He began climbing and also found that to be just a little off.

Replacing the manhole cover, he stood up. The night was a bit chilly and he was glad he was dressed in layers as his shirt was soaked in blood and sweat, but why was his head so cold?

He reached up to run his hands through his hair and froze.

His hair was gone!

Ok, that was an exaggeration, but it was short.

“What the hell?” he said and then his eyes widened at the sound of his own voice.

“Oh no.” He hurried to a nearby shop window and looked at his reflection. Dean was looking back at him.

**\--0--**

“Son of a bitch!” Dean was looking at himself in the bathroom mirror and was not happy to find Sam reflected there. As he ran his fingers though his now-long hair it pulled at his scalp in unpleasant ways.

“No, no, no, no.”

He poked at his Sam-face and moved the skin around with his fingers hoping to rub it away. He began pacing the room, but stopped quickly when he got to one wall too fast on his long legs. Sitting at the computer he grabbed the cell phone and started scrolling through the numbers in the contact list looking for Sam’s name, but he couldn’t find it.

“Stupid,” he said and scrolled to his own name and dialed. It went right to voicemail. Right, Sam was probably still in the tunnels. He thought about calling Bobby, but then decided to wait until he got a hold of Sam. He didn't even know what happened yet.

Eventually the phone rang with his own name on the display and he flipped it open so fast he almost dropped it.

"Sam?" He asked.

“Dean. What the hell?” His own voice came back to him through the speakers.

"I don't know," he said.

"Are you at the hotel?" Sam asked. "Are you - are you me?"

"Yes, I am at the hotel and I am a fucking beanstalk."

Dean could almost hear the bitch face.

"Dude," Sam said. "I'm almost there. Just don't – do – anything."

The phone disconnected and Dean threw it on the table.

**\--0--**

The hotel was finally in sight and Sam made his way to the last room on the first floor. It took a second to find his keys. Sam walked in and heard Dean stand up from the table. Sam closed the door and turn to find Dean staring at him.

They stood, each looking at their own body on their brother.

"Wow. I'm one sexy dude," Dean finally said.

Sam rolled his eyes and moved to sit in front of his laptop, pushing the taller Dean out of the way.

"Okay, Dean. What did you do?" he asked. He pulled off his jacket and threw it at Dean.

"Me?" Dean caught the jacket and moved across to one of the beds and sat on the end. "It was probably something _you_ did."

Sam raised his eyebrow at Dean.

"What?" Dean asked.

"Something happened down there."

"All I did was gank that thing so unless I'm not supposed to kill it with a knife because then it makes you switch bodies with your pain in the ass little brother," he played with the fabric of the coat, "and you didn't tell me about that, then I didn't do it."

“Just walk me through it.” Sam was already typing on the keyboard and double-checking the lore on the creature.

He looked up to see Dean pulling on his hair.

“Stop it,” Sam said.

Dean shook his head, whipping the long hair all around.

“Stop it!” Sam stood up.

“It's just so fluffy,” Dean said, still whipping his head around.

Sam moved toward Dean on the bed with the intention of smoothing out his hair that was all ruffled on top of Dean's head, but Dean saw him coming and jumped up onto the bed to get away. Sam was right behind him, leaping up onto the bed. Dean jumped onto the next bed but that's as far as he got before Sam tackled him. They both rolled to the floor and Sam sat on Dean's chest before reaching down to flattened Dean's long hair while Dean tried to squirm away.

“Dude, are you going to follow me around with a brush the whole time or are we gonna figure this out?”

Sam sighed and let him up.

Dean stood and moved to grab his coat.

“I'll go get some food, okay? Be right back.” He threw the coat on and then ripped it off again and slammed it down on the bed. Crossing to where Sam had left his coat, he put it on in a huff. “Just see what you can find out on body swapping.”

And then Dean was out the door. Sam sighed and got to work.

**\--0--**

While Dean waited for his order to be ready he called Bobby.

“Sam?” Bobby answered the phone groggily.

“No, it's Dean,” Dean said in Sam's voice. Dean could hear the eyeroll on the other end of the phone.

“Very funny, but I was trying to get some sleep, so this better be good.”

“No really, Bobby. It's Dean. And that's kind of the problem.”

“What did you boys do now?” Bobby asked. “It was supposed to be a simple hunt, Dean.”

“I know, I know.” Dean played with his hair absentmindedly. “Something caused Sam and I to - kinda - switch bodies or something.”

“... or something,” Bobby said sounding annoyed. “Well, I'll need more information than that to figure out the why, but I'll see what I can dig up on reversing it in general.”

“Thanks, Bobby.”

Another audible eyeroll. “You two, I swear to God.”

Bobby hung up.

**\--0--**

Freshly showered, Sam shook his head as he read through the same website over and over. He needed books. Or at least more information on what happened. Picking up Dean's cell, he dial Bobby.

This is going to be interesting, Sam thought.

“What, Sam?” Bobby's voice came on the line. “Don't you two ever talk?”

“What? I - Dean already called?”

“Yeah like 2 seconds ago.” The sarcasm was dripping off Bobby's voice. “And that's really not enough time to grab a beer, let alone search a body swap reversal spell because you idjits can't manage a simple hunt.”

“Okay, okay. Sorry. Just call me back if you find out anything.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Bobby hung up.

**\--0--**

Sam looked up from the laptop as Dean walked in carrying a bag of food and a drink tray. Dean handed out the food and plopped into the chair opposite Sam.

“I called Bobby,” he said, opening his Burger.

“I know,” Sam said. “So did I.”

He dug into his salad and looked up to watch Dean shove the greasiest burger he had ever seen into his mouth. Rolling his eyes, he sighed.

“I wouldn't do that, Dean.”

“What?” he asked around a mouthful of food.

“My body isn't as used to that food as yours is.”

“Dude, one burger is not going to kill you.”

Sam raise an eyebrow. “That one might.”

Shoving more food in his mouth Dean gave his brother a goofy grin, which Sam thought didn't look quite right seeing it on his own face.

“At least I'm eating something that will give you energy. If you're gonna be in my body at least eat a steak. I can't even watch you eating that crap.”

Sam ignored that. “I can't find anything related to body swapping, jumping, take over, or control...that connects to the creature. We're going to need more information.”

“What? Seance the creature and ask it what it did to us?”

“No, I don't think it was the creature. Tell me what happened down there.”

Dean crumpled the burger wrapper and threw it at the trash can, missing horribly.

“I don't know. I stabbed it. The baby attacked me. I ended up here.” He indicated the seats and was in.

“That's it?”

“That's it. I mean you were talking to me the whole time. It's not like –“

“What?”

“The mirror,” Dean said dejected. “I broke a mirror.”

“Oh crap. That's never good,” Sam said already typing away. “What did it look like?”

“Dude, I don't know. Reflective?”

Sam looked at his brother, annoyed.

“It was quick,” Dean defended himself. “It's not like I was window shopping through the hoarded pile of crap while I was down there.”

“Okay, okay. We will have to go down there.”

Sam flip the lid closed on his salad and stood up.

“No way. You should see that place. It's gross.”

After a beat, in which Sam hoped Dean heard himself, Sam responded. “I have.”

“Right. Then you know.”

Sam rolled his eyes. He held out his hand to Dean. “Fine, I'll go. Give me my gun.”

Dean reached into the back of his waistline grabbing the silver and mother-of-pearl Taurus and handed it over to him.

“Fine. Where's mine?” Dean asked, hand still extended.

Sam shrugged.

Dean looked horrified, which Sam thought was a much more likely look for his own face when it came to his brother.

“You didn't grab it?”

“How would I even know where you left it?”

“Well I don't know,” Dean shouted, standing up. “Maybe because in any hunting situation you want to make sure you know where your gun is. Jeez, have I taught you nothing?”

Sam shot right back. “Well I'm sorry that I was suddenly covered in blood, in the dark, with a thing in my face, that I had the state of mind to kill with a piece of glass, which probably came from the mirror you broke in the first place."

“No, don't put this back on me.“ He held up a hand Sam decided to let it go, rolling his eyes and walking towards Dean's coat, shrugging it on.

Dean moved towards the door. “I'm coming,” he said. “You will probably forget it down there.”

**\--0--**

“Oh my God, this sucks.” Dean was finding a whole new set of cobwebs just above Sam's head in front of him. “How do you even breathe up here?”

“Shut up,” Sam called back to him.

“And this hair. I mean just...” He pulled it away from his face and it mostly fell back down. He patted his jacket. “Now where is my knife?

Sam spun around glaring up at him. “Don't you fucking dare.”

Dean grinned down at him, still searching. Sam grab Dean's wrist.

“I'm serious, Dean. You mess up my hair, I will stab you.”

“You'd only be hurting yourself.”

“No. I'll wait until we sort this out.” Sam indicated himself. “And then I'll stab you in your sleep.”

Dean laughed and pulled out of Sam's grip. “Dude, I was kidding. But seriously, do you have an elastic or something?” He really was feeling way too hot to concentrate.

Sam turned away and kept walking.

“Is that a no?” Dean called after him.

**\--0--**

Sam bent down amongst the broken glass and reached for the mirror frame. The old frame was a solid piece of wood standing at least 4 feet high. On the sides it had knobs for a stand that would have allowed it to tilt forward and back. Around the edge, there was an ornate carving of leaves and vines weaving in and out.

Behind him, Dean had picked up his gun and was complaining to himself. Sam ignored him and leaned in closer, the light of the flashlight focused on where he was looking and moving slowly up and down one edge.

“I think...” he trailed off concentrating on the vines.

Dean quieted and moved his own beam of light to mingle with his brothers.

“What?”

“It looks like the vines might be making up letters.” He reached out to run his fingers over one spot.

“V. I. D. E. R. E.”

Dean furrowed his brow. “Why can't it be in English? Just once...”

But Sam was already talking to himself, working through the words and moving his hand along the carving.

“Latin it looks like. Videre...ummm...look? No. See. Videre et alloqui...see and.. Joshua? No, that's a 'q'...speak. See and speak...”

He stopped speaking and worked through the rest in his head. The words Sam could make out were “Videre et alloqui. Cum mutatio in speculo mundum.” Sam stayed quiet long enough that Dean hit him on the back.

“Okay. See and speak...and?”

“Yeah,” Sam said standing. “You got any paper?”

“No.”

Sam reached for Dean's – his – jacket. “You do. It's in the inside pocket. With a pen.”

He pulled open the jacket to reach into the pocket, but Dean slapped his hand away.

“I can get it, dude,” Dean said pulling out the paper and pen and handing it to Sam.

Sam wrote the words down and showed Dean his translation.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Dean took the pad of paper, reading “When change in mirror world?”

“That's a literal translation Dean. I'll have to study it a bit more to see what was meant by it.”

Dean took off for the exit muttering to himself about English – just once. And Sam followed after him grabbing back the notebook.

**\--0--**

Sam had found him an elastic and after a shower, in which he tried not to actually touch himself, or think about what Sam might have done in his earlier shower, he had his hair piled on top of his head and secured there. Again he looked at himself in the mirror and played with his face. He even tried out a few of his flirtatious faces. Oh man. There was no way he could get stuck like this. How depressing.

“Dean,” Sam called from the main room.

He opened the bathroom door and looked out. “Yeah.”

“I think I've got something.”

Motivated now, Dean moved across the room to look at the laptop screen over his brother's shoulder. The screen held the image of a hastily drawn mirror similar to the one he had smashed. The title of the page said “Mirror of the World.” He raised an eyebrow at Sam. The whole website looked like someone had thrown it together in five minutes.

“According to this – ”

“This child-created website?”

“According to this,” Sam started over. “The Mirror of the World is actually a sort of teleport. The witch that created it had two, and would be able to move between the two, or bring someone to her. She would actually kidnap people though the mirror.”

“So there's another? But it won't work without the one I broke?”

“Well that's the thing. It shouldn't have done what it did at all. You should have been moved to the other one if you said the proper incantation. You breaking it caused the spell to mess up.”

“So we can't actually fix this...” Dean was depressed again.

”Well, we don't know how happened, but the good news is that there IS another and if we get it, we can reverse it.. somehow...”

“...somehow.” Dean moved over to the bed and flopped down on it.

“Come on, Dean. It's gonna be fine. I already told Bobby what we know. He's looking. ”

“After what Lilith did in Colorado... I just need something to go right.” He stared at the ceiling and pictured Henriksen's face. He thought about Bela, in the wind with the colt. His time was running out and he didn't want Sam to be stuck inside his body forever when he went to Hell. Or worse, be taken in his place through some weird loophole. He didn't sell his soul to save Sammy, only to lose him again.

“Dean.” Sam's voice drew him out of his thoughts. “I know where the mirror is.”

**\--0--**

After some fighting about who was driving, Dean's mind or Dean's body, Sam took the wheel when he couldn't get his laptop to work, but Dean could. The road to Waukee, Iowa was a long, 10-hour drive with nothing much to see along the way. Dean found himself staring out the window, letting all his problems wash over him again and again, until he was numb and listless. Sam must have been lost in thought as well because he didn't say much after getting on the highway that was mostly a straight shot to the destination.

The destination was a small privately owned museum. A family collection of artwork and artifacts. The plan was to break in and take it. The problem would be where to put the giant mirror, but they would make it work.

The building that housed the mirror was unremarkable from the outside. A one-story house built in the 70's and modernized in only the most basic ways. New siding, updated electrical lines, open floor concept allowing for one main room used for the gallery. Dean was able to find all this online, hacking into the small town's website for building permits.

Sam spotted a sign on the lawn that said, "Protected by A&V Security Services," and sighed in relief. It was a national but cheap service that had a not well-known habit of taking longer to respond if the power went out in the surrounding area. This would give them ten minutes instead of two. From old gallery pictures the family had posted online, they knew the general location of the mirror. Sam would go to the local transformer and short-circuit it. Dean would go into the gallery and cart the mirror out and keep walking until Sam got back to him with the Impala. Luckily, there were no cameras outside the house.

"Just don't break this one," Sam said as he dropped Dean at the gallery.

"Yeah, yeah." Dean rolled his eyes and turn to the building as Sam drove off. He picked the locks on the front door in preparation but didn't open it. 

Standing on the front step, he looked around the yard. It was well-kept with flower gardens lining the walkway to the house. There was an afterthought of a handicap ramp attached to the steps, Dean guessed, for the elderly patriarch of the family who had recently had a stroke. This was good because this was Dean's exit.

Finally, it went dark. Street lights not yet updated to solar, the houses on either side of him, and most importantly, the house in front of him, all lost power seconds before Dean was on the move. 

By the light of his flashlight he found his way to a closed door. A tiny kitchen. On to the next. A half bathroom. He kept looking. Behind the last door he found a storage room. Inside was a hand truck which he quickly wheeled back to the main room. The mirror was right where the picture had placed it. No updates to the layout had occurred. This was a family gallery after all; it wasn't trying to stay hip to attract the masses. 

The problem Dean found was that this mirror had the stand still attached and the feet were too far apart to both land on the dolly.

Time was running out. Already someone on call from the electric company was probably rushing to the transformer to assess the problem. He'd have to leave the stand. 

The flashlight was set on a nearby podium next to an ugly-looking statue of a naked dude, as Dean tried to lift the mirror off the stand. He was both glad and upset that Sam wasn't there to help him when the mirror was heavier than he thought it would be and he did almost drop it. His hair was falling out of the elastic and into his face so he couldn't see, but somehow he managed to get the mirror off the stand and onto the floor. He walked the mirror onto the dolly and grabbed the flashlight, quickly moving towards the door. 

Once down the ramp, he moved in the direction he and Sam had planned out. A path that took him away from the area, but that didn't send him to a main road which the police would use to get to the gallery. 

The Impala's engine echoing in the distance was the best noise Dean had ever heard. 

The whole time he was walking, he had expected to hear sirens first. The neighborhood he was walking through wasn't densely populated, so he didn't expect to run into anyone out walking this late.  But it was the kind of place in which people looked out for their neighbor, and a man carting around a giant mirror at this hour was as good a reason as any to call the cops. 

Sam pulled up next to Dean and moved to the rear driver's side door and got in. Dean opened the the passenger side door and together they managed to get the mirror into the back, resting it longways into the footwell.

They were out of time. Sirens, faint in the distance and getting louder, caused Sam to get in the driver's seat again while Dean picked up the dolly and toss it off the road into the thin woods. It wouldn't stay hidden long, but long enough.

"Drive," Dean said, getting in and slamming the door, but Sam was already going.

"Slow down, Sam," Dean yelled a moment later. "You're gonna get us pulled over."

"God, do you wanna drive?" Sam slowed a little.

"Yeah," Dean said. "I might."

This started Sam laughing and Dean looked over at him like he was crazy.

"You kind of already are driving," Sam said between gasping breaths.

Dean smiled and then join in laughing.  "The good thing about this. If I got caught on camera, you'll get in trouble, not me."

They both laughed until they were out of town where Dean turned the music on and Sam didn't even complain once as they drive down the road to Singer Salvage, blasting classic rock.

**\--0--**

Having swapped drivers, it was Dean that pulled into Bobby's driveway as the sun was coming up and hit Sam to wake him up. Sam started and looked around.

"Come on," Dean said. "We're here."

Together they got the mirror into one of the indoor garage stalls and went to talk to Bobby. They found him at his desk with a half empty bottle of Jameson's next to him.

"That bad?" Sam asked.

Bobby looked up at them and glared. "Yeah, it's that bad. I managed to dig up some lore on your mirror and it ain't pretty." He held a worn book out to them.

Sam moved further into the room grabbing the book. Reading through the page, he looked up at Dean. "The witch stopped taking people because she disappeared. The town managed to block up the first mirror with a counter-spell and trapped her against the second one. Her choices were either escape into the mirror or die. You can guess which one she picked."

Bobby spoke up. "And breaking this mirror -- the way we get you two fixed -- either kills her, or releases her..."

"And we don't know which?" Dean asked.

"No," Bobby answered.

"Great," Dean said. "Well, I'm not staying in this totem pole another night. So let's hit the books and figure it out." He clapped his hands and moved to the bookshelf.

When no one else moved, he turned around to find them both staring at him, Sam with a cocky smile on his face.

"What?"

"You're starting to sound like me," Sam said.

"Oh God." He stomped out of the house.

**\--0--**

Readjusting the elastic holding his hair out of his face, Dean found himself looking into the mirror. Oh, Sammy, what have I done to you. And like a dam breaking, he was awash in his problems again. 

Hell. It was just so final. No getting out of that one. Not that he'd try. This was one deal he was not looking too closely at for loopholes. He took this time to really look at his little brother's face. To memorize every inch and pretend he wasn't the one looking out of the eyes.

Over his shoulder was a face and he spun around to find no one there. He turned back to the mirror and there was a woman standing next to him. She was saying something, but there was no sound. It wasn't like she was trying to get him to understand her, she was just talking constantly. The woman had gray hair and her eyes and cheeks were sunken in with age.

"Oh crap," Dean turned back for the house.

- **\--0--**

Sam was looking through the books Bobby had stacked in from of him. He explained that some he had already and some he had acquired last night. Sam didn't ask how.

He skimmed the pages quickly until something caught his eye. He read the page again and then stood suddenly.

"What?" Bobby looked up at him.

"I need to get Dean," Sam said, heading for the door.  "This isn't what we thought it was."

Dean and Sam almost ran into each other in the doorway.

"The witch is in the mirror," Dean said at same time that Sam spoke. "The witch is not in the mirror."

"What?" They both said.

Sam shook his head and pulled Dean into the room with Bobby. He showed them a journal entry printed in the book by an eyewitness. The witch had not escaped into the mirror as most of the town thought. She had simply used a spell to move somewhere else. After all, she had created the mirrors with the teleport spell in the first place. Wherever the witch had gone, the author didn't know.

"The mirror did trap someone though," Dean said. "I just saw her."

Sam pointed further down the page. "The final kidnapped child was never found."

"It's gotta be her. But she's not a girl anymore. She aged in that mirror."

Bobby took the book and read the page over.

"So we have the same problem where we don't know if it will kill her or free her, but now there's a kid a stake?" Dean pulled the elastic out of his hair, flinching as it caught individual hairs.

"You said she wasn't a child anymore." Bobby said. "This all happened 200 years ago."

"Still, it wasn't her choice and now we might kill her?"

Bobby walked to the door.

"Come on."

**\--0--**

The three stood side by side looking into the mirror. The woman was talking still. Her eyes didn't meet theirs. Bobby leaned in and watched her lips.

"She's praying."

"You can read lips?" Sam looked at Bobby.

"A bit."

Sam and Dean exchanged an impressed look.

"That doesn't tell us anything, though," Dean said.

"Now, I know I'm gonna have to be the one to say this, but Dean, look at her. She's been trapped in this mirror for almost 200 years. Believe me, if I was stuck like that, I wouldn't mind dying."

Dean did look. She was frail and empty, lost in a backwards world of insubstantial matter. Say she did want to die. Then what if the mirror freed her and she was forced to live? Or die an even more painful and slow death?

He looked over at Sammy, unsure.

Sam shrugged. "We can keep looking."

The woman in the mirror threw herself at the glass, her tiny hands pressing towards the boys with almost no strength behind them.

Even Dean could make out this word as she finally looked right at him.

"Please," She mouthed. "Please."

"No matter the outcome. We can't leave her in there," Dean said still looking at the woman. "Let's do this."

- **\--0--**

It was the blood that had caused the spell to mess up in just that way. If Dean hadn't made a fresh sacrifice, the mirror most likely would have broken with no ill effect besides 7 more years added to their total of bad luck. Bobby explained that the two switched because they had been talking to each other. He showed them what to do and then left the room so he would not get mixed up in their return swap.

Sam cut his hand and wiped it on his shirt. Sacrifice done, it was time to smash the mirror. They had decided that he should use his body again just in case. He looked at the woman in the glass and smiled at her. "Ready, Dean?"

"Ready, Sammy."

The woman twisted her mouth upward at the corners as he threw himself at the reflective surface.

At once, he was standing looking at Dean on the ground amidst shards of broken glass, but he didn't move to help him up. Instead he watched, transfixed, as a swirling blue light floated upward away from the mirror.

"What is that?" Dean had seen it too.

"A soul, maybe?" Sam watched it until it floated too high for him to see.

Dean got up by himself and looked into the mirror shards. "Whatever it is, she's gone."

Sam sent off a silent prayer to help her get home safe and turned back to Dean, happy to be seeing the top of his head. He took the elastic out of his hair and ran his fingers through it. "You are so lucky..."

"Shut up, you're lucky to have had the opportunity to try this out." He indicated himself and walked back into Bobby's house. "Although, I hope you didn't try it out in any creepy ways."

Sam shook his head rolling his eyes. "Come on, dude."

Bobby looked up as they bickered their way into the room.

"All better now?" He asked.

"I'll need the hottest shower to be sure, but I think we'll be ok." Dean shuddered.

Sam shoved him.

"Ok, after that, I have a case for you. There's a house that is only haunted once every 4 years on leap day. Only chance you're gonna get for four years is next week."

Last chance Dean will ever get, Sam thought.

"Sounds awesome," Dean said. "Now I need to find me a clean towel."

Bobby shooed both of them out of the room. "Yeah, yeah. Go get cleaned up."

"Thanks, Bobby," Sam said, smiling at Bobby’s grunt of a reply. 

He turned and followed his short brother up the steps. 

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [Supernatural Writing Challenge](http://spnwritingchallenge.tumblr.com) on tumblr. Cross-posted [there](http://brothersinsync.tumblr.com/post/146183264963/reflective-soulmate).


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